What the Internet Says
I've had so many things that I've wanted to post about lately. Unfortunately, time has been a bit crunched. I'm working on a few articles that I'm excited about, and I'm also trying to get a brand new Salary Survey up and running so we can bring you the most accurate and relevant results. Also, here at
ADVANCE, we're entering the wide world of Web 2.0. We're working on getting a
Facebook page for the magazine, which is both slightly scary (hello, old boyfriends!) and really something to look forward to as I'm finding out how cool the Internet is (on Facebook, it generates a list that says here are people you might know--and it was right! I did know the people it chose! Let's see mIRC do that!).
Anyway, I'll just summarize some of the more interesting things I've stumbled across lately on the World Wide Web. Here goes:
- I interviewed Amy Lynch for my Generation Y story about a year ago, and she sends me updates from her company, Bottom Line Conversations. She recently penned an article that caught my eye. I'm a Gen Y girl (actually, I'm on the cusp of Gen X and Gen Y, so I suppose I have traits of both). The article deals with Generation Y's lack of decision making, and she refers back to a blog I like by Fortune's Nadira Hira (you might recognize her from those "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" style shows on various cable networks). If you deal with Generation Y workers daily, Amy's article is definitely a worthwhile read, and from the Gen Y perspective, I found it to be accurate.
- Next up, there's great news on the medical identity theft front. At the American Health Information Management Association's (AHIMA) conference last year, I learned a ton about medical identity theft, and honestly, it terrifies me. Our assistant editor Ainsley did a story on it for the Web site, and our "Hands-on Help" column also featured medical identity theft. For even more information, you can visit the World Privacy Forum (WPF), run by Pam Dixon, who spoke at AHIMA and made a stunning case about medical identity theft. The WPF site is really a must-see for any HIM professional. Now onto that news I promised--the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) is paying attention to the threat of medical identity theft. In fact, they awarded a $450,000 contract to Booz Allen Hamilton to take a look at the threat of medical identity theft in the U.S. There is, however, still a lot of work to be done.
- I liked this story about a doctor who, frustrated with the Cerner system his medical center was using, went off and created his own EMR. This isn't a rare occurrence; the article explains that hundreds of doctors have done the same. But I'm pretty sure none of them expressed their befuddlement with their center's EHR in these words: "It's about as popular as malaria."
- Finally, if you can slog through the many ads on this site, this post is a decent one. It deals with HIPAA and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and offers a pretty thorough overview of what college and university student health center HIM departments have to deal with. I did an article on student health center HIM departments some time ago, and the ones I spoke to had some great technology, were amazing to work with and one even let us drop by for a photo shoot. They definitely have a lot to deal with when it comes to privacy.